REACTIONS BY FELLOW FUNDAMENTALISTS AND OTHER EVANGELICALS TO
VERBAL ATTACKS ON MUSLIMS

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A group of Fundamentalist Christian religious leaders and columnists verbally
criticized Islam in the aftermath to the 9-11 terrorist attacks. After a delay
of over a year, some Fundamentalist and other Evangelical religious leaders
responded to the criticisms:

A group of over two dozen Southern Baptist missionaries who are attempting to
spread conservative Christianity in countries with a large Muslim majority in
the Middle East, North Africa, East Africa and South Asia have issued a letter
asking their fellow Baptists in America to refrain from verbally attacking Islam and the
Prophet Muhammad. It said, in part: "Comments by Christians in the West about
Islam and Muhammad can and do receive much attention in our cities and
communities on local radio, television and print sources....These types of
comments...can further the already heightened animosity toward Christians, more
so toward evangelicals, and even more so toward Baptists. We have found it more
beneficial with our Muslim friends to concentrate on sharing Christ in love and
concentrating on the message of the gospel, instead of speaking in a degrading
manner about their religion or prophet." The letter was brought from the
Middle East to the U.S. by a professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological
Seminary in Wake Forest, NC. The Biblical Recorder, a news journal
for North Carolina Baptists, first published it. 1

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Evangelical Christians discuss verbal attacks on Islam:

The National Association of Evangelicals [NAE], which
represents more than 43,000 conservative Protestant denominations, helped
organize a meeting on 2003-MAY-7 to deal with
attacks by leading Fundamentalist religious leaders on Islam. The
Institute on Religion and Democracy, a conservative Christian group in
Washington that often critiques mainline Protestantism, co-sponsored the
meeting. Among the most hate-filled original comments were those by:

Franklin Graham who
called Islam "a very evil and wicked religion:"

A former president of
the Southern Baptist Convention, the Rev. Jerry Vines, who called the Prophet
Muhammad "a demon-possessed pedophile," and

Jerry Falwell's comment that
"Muhammad was a terrorist."

At the meeting, concern was express
that the verbal attacks on Islam by Jerry Falwell, Franklin Graham, Benny Hinn, Pat
Robertson, Jimmy Swaggart and others fed the widespread perception in the
Middle East that the war on terrorism is really a Christian crusade against
Islam. "The [40] evangelical leaders...issued what one of them called a
'loving rebuke' to their colleagues for remarks that they said tarnished
American Christians and jeopardized the safety of missionaries and indigenous
Christians in predominantly Muslim countries." 2

The Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the NAE said: "We must
temper our speech. There has to be a way to do good works without raising
alarms." He suggested that a meeting be held with Falwell, Robertson and
other high-profile Fundamentalist Christians to explain the damage their
comments have caused.

Paul Marshall, senior fellow at the human rights group
Center for Religious Freedom said that attacks on Islam serve only to
antagonize people. "Exactly what is to be achieved by that except boosting
the ego of who said it?"

Hodan Hassan, spokesperson for the Council on American-Islamic
Relations (CAIR) was encouraged by the meeting. She said: "We can
understand theological differences but what's important is that the dialogue
is one of respect, not demonization."

Clive Calver, president of World Relief, the
humanitarian aid arm of the NAE, said that the attacks have "placed lives
and livelihoods at risk" overseas, where missionaries have become targets
of Muslim extremists. He said that Mr. Graham's comments had been circulated
widely throughout the Middle East. "It's used to indict all Americans and
used to indict all Christians."

Rich Cizik, a NAE vice-president said that for some
conservative Christians, Islam has replaced communism as the "modern-day
equivalent of the evil empire...We've got to have an attitude of how can we
serve, how can we help. Saying Islam is evil isn't going to help any of us."
3 Referring to the clash of civilizations theory promoted
by author Samuel P. Huntington, Cizik said: "If the hard right has its way,
we will have a Huntington."

Beliefnet posted the Associated Press report and
encouraged its visitors to offer comments about the meeting. A common response
was that the meeting attendees were not primarily concerned about the accuracy
of the attacks on Islam; they were worried about the danger that their
missionaries face. 4